​Edgar Wright Shifts 'Baby Driver' Into High Gear

British director Edgar Wright may be better known for his encyclopaedic knowledge of movies (he and buddy Quentin Tarantino namedropped 190 titles in the commentary track for Hot Fuzz alone), but his latest film — and first following the final instalment of his Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy — is steeped in the world of music.

Baby Driver tells the story of Baby (rising star Ansel Elgort), a getaway driver who constantly requires a never-ending playlist in his ears to blast away a bad case of tinnitus he got in a car accident as a kid, and can't complete his jobs unless he's listening to the perfect song.

Wright first came up with the idea while listening to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" on repeat in his bedroom in his early 20s. While much has changed with the story over the past 22 years (he even tested the idea out with Noel Fielding in the music video for Mint Royale's "Blue Song" back in 2002), its message about music as solace in even the most harried situations has stayed the same.

"I never had a Walkman when I was a kid. But once the iPod came out, it started a whole generation of people having their own radio stations. I think for a lot of people in life, it's sort of a rare moment of escape, but also one of control. If you're working in a shit job and you're commuting to work and back again, like, it's the one thing you can do," he says.

"If I get stuck in a car and for some reason I can't get the stereo going, I'm very miserable. But then my mood is immediately lifted when I play something that I love."